Something from the tackle box:
A truly good wife is the most
precious treasure a man can find!
Her husband depends on her, and she never lets him down. She is good to him every day of her
life… She is like a sailing ship that
brings food from across the sea.
She gets up before daylight to prepare food for her family and her
servants. She knows how to buy and
sell land and how to plant a vineyard, and she always works hard… She is strong
and graceful, as well as cheerful about the future. Her words are sensible, and her advice is thoughtful. She takes good care of her family and
is never lazy. Her children praise
her, and with great pride her husband says, “There are many good women, but you
are the best!” (selected verses
from Proverbs 31 CEV)
In my
last post I included a watercolor painted by my wife, Kathy. The work shows me fly fishing in
the water near our Cheboygan cottage.
It is a beautiful picture and the original hangs in our house office
space, where it brings me joy every day.
I recently changed the profile picture on my facebook page to this image
and the response by my friends has been so positive that I've decided to devote a page
on this blog to my relationship with the wonderful artist that I am married to.
Kathy and
I actually met in an art class. We
were both art majors at Western Michigan University back in the mid-70s. She was learning how to make a living
as a graphic designer, while I was trying to decide if I really should become a
High school art teacher. She
became a very good designer and worked for a number of advertising and design
firms over the year before settling down, thirteen years ago, to her current home
in the publications department of Kellogg Community College, which she now manages. I never did become an art teacher, - or
even tried to very hard.
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| I am not the only good looking fisherman in Kathy's life. |
The first
class we had together was a life drawing class. It was here that I first noticed how very, very pretty she
was. She sometimes wore a very
soft looking sky blue sweater that was stunningly attractive on her. But I never said much more that “hello”
to her at this point. She was an
extremely quiet young lady in class and showed no real interest in my company.
Our first
conversation happened later, when we were taking a sculpture class
together. I had a good friend in
that class named Greg Stewart, a very talented art student with a gregarious
personality, and we were always talking about something while working on our
sculpture assignments together.
One day we were talking about the
socio-economic milieu of our respective High school days. Kathy was working right next to
us. Greg came from a
decidedly upper-class suburb of Detroit, while I was from a generally lower to
middle-class rural community. He
commented that many of his classmates did not ride the bus to school, as the
chauffeur would always drop them off and pick them up in one of the family's
limousines. I responded that no
one ever came to my school in a limo, but those who didn’t want to ride the bus
might well drive one of the family tractors to school, and it was not uncommon to see five or six
of them in the school parking lot on any given day. Greg laughed like he didn’t believe it, and that’s when the
future love of my life got into the conversation.
“Really! I know kids who drove their tractors to
my High school, too!”
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| painting of grandson Nolan |
And with
that "butt-in" my sweetie was part of the conversation, and a part of my
life from then on. It was not long
before we realized that she had only lived about a fifteen-minute drive from
where I had grown up. Our old
school districts had bordered on one another. In fact, if her farm home had been situated a scant three
miles north of where it was, we would have most likely taken some High school art
classes together long before this.
We went together like peas and
carrots. Kathy has told me that,
the first time she took me home to meet her family and I walked in through the
farmhouse kitchen door, it was as if I already belonged there as much as she
did. I felt just the same way when
she was with my kin, (although my old pet dog, who was nearing the end of her
life, never did cotton to Kathy – a bit jealous, I think.) To abbreviate a
wonderful romance, and life, with three kids, three grand-kids, a couple of career
changes, a bout with cancer, and a few home moves along the way, I think she is more
beautiful than she was in that sky blue sweater back in college, and I love her even more than I did back then.
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| Kathy fishing out of our canoe |
But
what’s all of this got to do with fishing?
Well, my wife doesn’t love to fish the way I love to fish, - but she
doesn’t mind it either! Not at
all! We go out fishing together a
half-dozen times or so every year, and we always have a great time
together. (Stay tuned! I will be
writing more about how she often out-fishes me in an upcoming story.) And even when we don’t go out together,
as, weather permitting, I try to get out on the water at least a couple times
every week, she encourages me in my love of the sport. She is the one who bought me
fly-fishing lessons as a Christmas present and got me started on
that passion many seasons past. She is the one who
encouraged me to buy the lake canoe, which we use a lot. She is the one lets me know when the freezer is getting low
on blue gill fillets and I need to do something about it. And, most
impressively, she is the one who my love of fishing and the water has
inspiration for some of her best artwork.
We have
actually spent time together looking at pictures of Michigan fish, talking
about what they look like, how they feed, how they swim, what are the best ways
to catch them, how they behave when they are hooked, and how that can all be
depicted in a painting. What fun
for a fisherman! What fun for an
artist!
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| bluegill on a hare's ear |
The real
reason for posting this article is to show you some of what she had done with
watercolor, paper and brush, works of art that I am so proud of my wife for
creating. She is a peach, and a
pretty good fisherman as well.
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| brown trout on a wet fly |
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| fishing boats in Peggy's Cove |
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| water reflections |
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| water reflections |
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